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Accelerometer

Nearly every automaker is incorporating streaming music, social media functionality and other assorted apps into their infotainment systems, but one thing that's largely been missing is performance data. If you've got access to the ECU and can tap into an accelerometer, you've got the info, and now Mini is making use of it.

One day after spotting the "inexpensive" auto performance measurement tool Dynolicious for the iPhone, we've found another, and it's much cheaper. Liberty For One has released its own automotive measurement tool called g-tac, and its going for just $4.99. For less than half the cost of the Dynolicious tool, you get times and trap speed for the quarter mile, as well as times for 0-60 and 60-0. The g-tac utilizes the iPhone's (and iPod Touch's) accelerometer to determine velocity, so the phone doe

The world has gone iPhone crazy since Apple released v2.0 of its sleek mobile device, and while GPS and 3G have been big draws, the multitude of available software apps in the new App Store has been the real wild card. One app that has us really psyched is a new automotive performance meter called Dynolicious from BunsenTech. It uses the accelerometer inside the iPhone to let you record 0-10 through 0-100 times, quarter mile and trap speed, Lateral Gs, horsepower and more. Results are also displ

After seeing a physics experiment where a Nintendo Wii remote (wiimote) was used as a type of pendulum, an enterprising soul thought to use the Wiimote's 3-axis accelerometers to measure g-forces and even time acceleration runs, effectively creating a DIY g-meter gauge. The Wiimote might not be the most accurate tool for the job, but it's reasonably good and if you happen to have a Wii and a laptop handy.